Review: Much Ado About Nothing

Going back and writing reviews for the plays I wrote a bit about in entries but didn't fully review. Starting, of course, with the first one.

Much Ado About Nothing was the first play I saw in London, still a bit jet-lagged and therefore hoping it was REALLY good, otherwise I wouldn't stay awake. The theatre itself, the Wyndham, is located right next to Leicester Square, right outside the Tube station, basically where the crowds gather. I'm guessing they would want to put good shows in such a theatre, and Much Ado did not disappoint.

This particular version took place in the 1980's in a Mediterranean setting. There was rock and pop music. There was an updated version of a Shakespearean song (and accompanying dance) to end the play. Modern but a bit distant. A bit flashy. "Razz-ma-tazz" as our professor put it. And while some points of the play were interpreted in an over-the-top sort of way, this being a comedy, it didn't really take away from the story, and for the most part the play was really good.

Now, one thing I've learned on this trip is that the actors can really make or break a play. A director's interpretation can be really good (or bad, alternatively) but an actor has a lot of power over how everything is received. I would have to say that as the couple that spars constantly using wit, David Tennant and Catherine Tate were cast perfectly as Benedick and Beatrice. Tennant does wit rather well. Tate is a comedian already. And both have already worked together and bounce very well off each other, as they did in the production, which was fantastic to see.

Not only verbal comedy, but physical comedy as well. The scene where Benedick overhears his friends talking of Beatrice's "love" for him required Tennant to employ all manner of physical comedy, with a bucket of white paint, given that Benedick doesn't actually have many lines in this scene but is very much present the whole time. This was hilarious, made even more so by his following soliloquy in which he absorbs this information. Tate's scene required the same from her, but in this case the director's choice of how it was carried out made it less successful; she had to hang from a hook and swing in the air, which was one of the more over-the-top moments of the play that didn't quite work out.

Much Ado also requires a bit of dramatic acting from the two leads, given that an unsuccessful wedding affects Beatrice's cousin Hero badly, and she asks Benedick to prove his love by killing Hero's almost-husband Claudio. Tennant balanced the comedy and drama well, while Tate had a bit more trouble transitioning between the two. But those scenes didn't make up a majority of the play, so the trouble was no too noticeable. All in all, Tennant and Tate were excellent.

Opposite Benedick and Beatrice are Hero and Claudio, the more standard couple who are in love with each other because, well, they love each other. Here, played by Sarah Macrae and Tom Bateman, they were a lot less interesting. It probably didn't help that both were less experienced actors in roles that were always up against roles being played by extremely experienced actors. But part of the reason Macrae and Bateman weren't remarkable was very likely because their characters don't have much to them, either.

On the whole, the acting was really good. Adam James worked well as Don Pedro, friend to Claudio. Alex Beckett was suitably unlikable as Borachio, as was Elliot Levey hatable as Don John, the villain of the play. And Jonathan Coy was a pretty amiable Leonato, father to Hero, up until he got very angry during the marriage scene.

I always think a production is good if I have the desire to see it again, and I would go see Much Ado About Nothing again if I could. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for them, tickets are sold out for the rest of the run. Which is probably a good indicator that on the whole, the play has been a success.